Kinfolk Nakia Shine dropping album on Universal and wants to host BET’s Rap City

Memphis rapper/producer Kinfolk Nakia Shine’s debut album, Due Season, is expected to have an April 2007 release date on Universal.

Memphis rapper/producer Kinfolk Nakia Shine’s debut album, Due Season, is expected to have an April 2007 release date on Universal. As reported on MemphisRap.com back in July, the Memphis’ hometown rap/hip-hop artist and master producer, along with Rap Hustlaz Records, an urban music enterprise owned by Shine, and business partner Jack Frost both inked a venture deal with Universal Motown Records.

“Right now, we’re focusing on us, because that’s what’s been working for the last year and a half,” Frost states in an interview with the Memphis Flyer. “We don’t want to complicate the situation or stir the chemistry by adding anyone else to the mix.”

“Same grind, different day,” says Shine. “Anyone can make a beat — the tough part is being able to sell it.”

The duo’s future apparently was put on hold, when in 2002 after dropping Memphis classics such as Gangsta Blac’s The Mayor and the Pimp and Kingpin Skinny Pimp’s Pimpin’ and Hustlin’, Frost went to jail after a drug bust.

“Everything fell apart,” Frost says, still remembering the sting. “Everyone thought I had a life sentence, and nobody stuck with us.”

Released two years later, he and Shine recruited local femme fatale La Chat for 2004’s Dramatize, but the relationship quickly soured.

“It was an ‘a-ha’ moment,” Frost notes. “F--k dealing with other people. We’re gonna do it ourselves, and we’re gonna rap.”

Shine is known for producing tracks for such multi-platinum selling artists as T.I., Juvenile, Ludacris, Mike Jones and 8 Ball but Shine’s debut single,